Media Literacy: Making Sense Of New Technologies And Media by George Siemens - Nov 22 09

In this weekly Media Literacy Digest, open education and connectivism advocate George Siemens, takes you to news and stories on emerging media, communication technologies and education-related trends, helping you make good sense of the many changes taking place around you and of how these directly impact your daily lives.

Oslo Presentations - I am in Oslo. I have a total of four face-to-face presentations and three online presentations to deliver this week. We are also running the LearnTrends conference online. So it is a bit hectic.

This got me thinking about how far I would go to adopt technology. Or humanity as a whole. Do you have a limit? Is there a point at which you would say "no more". And if you (we) did, would it matter? Would it abate development? Is transhumanism our future? Will technology always lead and humanity simply follow where it goes?

Chrome OS

Running Chrome OS at this stage is no easy task - it will be a while before it will be available for most users. And, once available, it is geared to the netbook market.

Not surprisingly, since Chrome started its life as a browser, applications run as tabs. Without being able to cite any research, I think most people seem more comfortable with a browser than any other application on their computer.

Google is targeting ease of use. For that matter, Google is seeking to do to the web what Microsoft did to the desktop.

Salesforce Chatter

Basically, Chatter introduces some of the functionality found in Facebook and Twitter into a secure enterprise system.

Reactions vary (have a look at the comments on the article), including: "everyone is on Facebook already - why bother with Chatter", "this is great - just what I needed", and "Elgg does this better already and its free".

Still, the best way to determine if a software has gained traction is to have someone develop it at an enterprise level. Sadly, it is also the best way to kill the transformative functionality of new software.

Video Games: Modern Warfare

What other media even comes close? What is a big weekend for a new movie release? $50-60 million?

I have been looking for something approaching an authoritative figure on the cost of developing MW2. Figures range between $30-50 million. Again, considering block buster movies can cost in excess of $100 million to make, the movie industry is being significantly upstaged by the gaming industry.

Plus, games run on a centralized device, so XBox can do things like this to prevent piracy.

LearnTrends Recordings

After three days of five+ hours work of presentations, we have (Jay Cross, Tony Karrer, and I) wrapped up our third annual LearnTrends conference. Scott Skibell of Skillcasting has completed and posted recordings of the event.

Topics include:

convergence,

mobile learning,

design,

social learning,

managing information,

microlearning,

enterprise 2.0 and many others.

A great event - congrats and thanks to all involved in presenting / planning / attending!

For some reason, these intensive online conferences are more exhausting than face to face events.